


Recycled Air

by WebbedUpKatanas



Series: My Sweet Baby: You're the One [1]
Category: Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 10:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3688866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WebbedUpKatanas/pseuds/WebbedUpKatanas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam gets stuck on the longest plane ride of his life, the only thing he can hope is that he'll be seated next to someone nice. The reality isn't exactly what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recycled Air

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in an AU where Peter is still Spider-Man, but he never joined SHIELD and continued on as a vigilante hero. He also got busy in another way...

Sam hates flying.

Okay, that’s a lie. He doesn’t hate it when he has his helmet on. He loves flying with his helmet.

But airplanes? Airplanes are a different story.

They’re stuffy, crowded full of loud, rude, horrible people who lean on you, or worse sneeze on you. And they move so slowly. Planes take something that’s usually fun and turn it into torture. And stupid Ava had insisted that he fly like a regular person for some stupid reason (he’s pretty sure it was just to make him cry), so now here he is, trapped on what she had ‘accidentally’ neglected to tell him was going to be a fourteen hour flight.

It’s too late to leave now, he’s already on the plane and he has a feeling the people behind him might not enjoy being bowled over in a mad dash for the door, so he figures he might as well suck it up, find his seat and spend the whole plane ride plotting revenge.

Who knows, he thinks hopefully as he counts the seats. Maybe he’ll get sat next to someone hot.

Thirty three, thirty four… thirty five A.

Sam’s heart sinks as he surveys his seat partners for his fourteen hour flight, and he tries not to make his sigh too obvious as he stows his overhead luggage. The guy looks nice enough, despite his three dollar haircut and tired eyes. He’s about Sam’s age, tall and skinny and wearing worn out jeans and an even more worn out expression, but he at least has the decency to look a little bit apologetic as he adjusts the reason he should feel sorry for Sam on his lap. That reason looks up at him and coos adorably, blinking her big blue eyes up at him and chewing on her fingers as Sam takes the aisle seat.

Great. A baby.

He glances thankfully at the seat between him and Haircut. At least some other sucker will have to deal with the brunt of the inevitable baby induced terror they are all about to experience, and he’ll have a barrier between himself and the various wonderful smells and sounds he knows a baby is going to make during 14 long hours.

Only when the bustle of boarding dies down there’s still no one beside him. And then the horror dawns as his seat-mate leans down to adjust the car seat that’s laying innocuously in the footspace of the empty seat. Oh God… there’s no one else coming. He’s stuck beside the baby.

For. Fourteen. Hours.

“Hey, I’m Peter. I figure we should get to know each other since we’re about to be stuck on here for longer than is humanly advisable,” the guys hand is suddenly all up in his space, looking to be shook. Great he’s a talker. Sam takes the hand.

“Sam,” he says, with a nod, and then grabs the tiny slightly damp hand of the little girl currently bouncing on Peter’s knee. “Nice to meet you too…”

“Mayday!”

Sam’s head snaps up in alarm. “What? What’s wrong?!”

Peter’s laughter is so loud that people in the seats around them turn to look, but Sam doesn’t really care because the baby laughs too, seemingly just because she’s happy that her dad is happy, and that’s pretty adorable.

“No no, sorry, her name is Mayday. May for short,” Peter says as he tries to quiet his laughter. He gives the baby on his lap a fond look, and Sam has to try really really hard to keep his heart from melting all over the floor.

“Mayday? Seriously? You named your kid Mayday?”

Peter shrugs, giving him a sly grin. “We were gonna name her after my aunt May, and Mayday came up as a joke since I uh… tend to get myself into trouble. A lot. And the name just kinda stuck.”

“Riiight,” Sam says, smirking slightly. What kind of trouble could this nerd possibly get into? “ So… is her mom gonna be sitting here too?”

Peter’s face falls slightly, and it’s enough to let Sam know he fucked up before Peter even opens his mouth.

“Uh no… we aren’t together.”

Shit.

“Oh that’s… uh…” Sam splutters a little. “That sucks.”

Peter shrugs, giving him a smile. “It’s alright. She’s an actress, and she’s on set right now. Hence the fourteen hour plane ride,” the way Peter says fourteen hours perfectly encompasses how Sam feels about it, and he immediately has the thought that they are going to get along just fine.

“Cool. Well hi there Mayday. I’m sure we’ll learn all about each other before we get off this hunk of junk. Just… please try to poop your pants as little as possible and I’ll do the same, and we should get along fine.”

Peter laughs again, the same too-loud bright laugh, and this time May isn’t the only one who laughs along.

Surprisingly May doesn’t even blink during takeoff. In fact the forty year old man a few rows ahead of them does most of the crying, while May stares fascinated at her own bright purple-clad toes.

Sam usually spends flights staring out the window at the wisps of cloud, wishing he was out there flying through them alone instead of trapped inside metal walls with a bunch of strangers. On this flight though things are different. Peter seems to be incapable of shutting up, but for once in his life Sam finds he really doesn’t mind having an overly chatty seat partner.

At some point the car seat gets moved over to the window seat and the armrest raised so that Sam and Peter can squish close and watch in flight movies on the tiny screen together while May dozes peacefully on her dad’s lap. Peter is surprisingly fun to talk to, though they do get a little bit loud bickering over whether or not the special effects are any good (Sam knows first hand that space explosions definitely don’t look like that, but it’s not like he can tell Peter that).

And then about halfway through the third movie Peter falls asleep.

Peter falls asleep on him.

Sam doesn’t know what to do, so he pretends it’s not happening, stares straight forward and prays Peter won’t drool on his shirt.

Only pretending it isn’t happening gets a lot harder when Peter’s face sort of… nuzzles against his shoulder, and his arm wraps around his middle as he tries to get more comfortable. Normally he’d have pushed him off but Peter looks so peaceful, and his arm is warm where it’s holding him, and honestly? He doesn’t mind too much. Which is beyond weird because stranger snuggling usually isn’t so much Sam’s thing. No matter how many times Danny tells the story of how they met when Sam used his arm like a teddy bear for a few hours at the library in college. (College is a different world okay? Everyone falls asleep on strangers in college. Once you hit the real world that’s supposed to stop… at least that’s what he thought.)

In fact, Sam doesn’t mind it so much that he almost finds himself dozing off too before he remembers…

“Wasn’t this arm supposed to be holding something important?” he mutters with his eyes half closed, plucking at Peter’s sleeve and getting a little adorably annoyed sound and a tightened grip at the gesture. And that’s when Sam hears an equally adorable sound coming from the vicinity of Peter’s knees.

“Oh shit…” he watches as May rolls slightly, giggling and flailing her limbs like she’s conducting a tiny baby symphony, edging dangerously towards the abyss.

“Mayday! Mayday!” Sam whispers frantically, trying to reach her without waking his snuggly seatmate up. Now that he’s a pillow he’s accepted his fate, but if he has to break the cardinal pillow rule and wake Peter up he supposes there are worse reasons than ‘your baby was about to fall on the floor.’

“C’mere you,” he whispers, finally freeing his hands and managing to get a grip on May. She seems slightly confused at her new position on Sam’s lap, but she adjusts with a happy gurgle and busies herself grabbing at his nose as Sam tries to settle back in and Peter does that oddly cute sleep nuzzling thing again.

“Excuse me sir, would you like a drink or a snack?” the stewardess asks, smiling fondly at the scene before her.

“Uh, yeah I’ll have a coke please. How bout you May? I think they have a fine selection of wine…” May makes a gurgly baby sound and keeps patting at his nose like she expects it to play with her. “No? Just cookies? Probably for the best really,” Sam replies, tweaking May’s nose back and getting himself a smile in return.

The stewardess laughs, opening his can of coke and pouring it into a tiny plastic cup. “Your daughter is adorable. What’s her name?” she asks handing his drink over and fishing out a packet of cookies for May to gum at.

“Oh uh she’s… her name is Mayday,” Sam splutters, suddenly very aware that he’s having this conversation while holding someone else’s baby and that he can feel the corner of Peter’s mouth pressed against where the neck of his t-shirt meets his skin.

“She’s so sweet,” the woman (her name tag says Jenny) says, as she closes up the compartment of her cart that she had fished the cookies from. He wonders if she actually doesn’t notice the odd name, or if that’s just her customer service training in action. “Anything for your husband?” she asks sweetly, nodding to Peter who is now snoring unappealingly against Sam’s neck.

“M-my… uh…” Sam panics for a second. Here he is holding this guys baby, with the guy in question sleeping on his shoulder and… of course she thinks they’re married. Thankfully before he has the chance to embarrass himself Mayday comes to his rescue, yanking hard on Peter’s hair and waking him up with a yelp.

“Wazzit? May? Where’s my…” Peter blinks up into Sam and the stewardess’ laughing faces, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck sheepishly. “Uh.. guess I must have fallen asleep sorry. Oh hey are those snacks?!”

So somehow Sam ends up continuing to hold the baby as they snack, bouncing her gently on his knee as Peter tells him about working as a photographer for his terrible boss, and Sam tells him stories of his life as best he can without giving away that he spends a lot of his time fighting invaders from space. He has to try not to laugh when Peter casually mentions taking pictures of Spider-Man because he’s totally met the wallcrawler before, and even saved his butt a few times, but again, that’s not something he can mention to this nerd. 

Sam hands the baby off when she starts to get fussy and sort of smelly, but he finds he doesn’t mind the noise (or smell) as much as he thought he would. He has the terrible suspicion that it has nothing to do with taking care of his sister when she was small and everything to do with the way Peter smiles apologetically and the incongruously graceful yet awkward way he inches past him to go change her and ends up tripping and almost falling in Sam’s lap like a dork.

“Ugh why did he have to be cute,” he sighs to himself, sliding his arm around his middle and snuggling down into his seat.

“Would you like a blanket?” Jenny asks a minute later, smiling at him as she hands him two pillows and one thin blanket before moving on. It really says a lot about the state of Sam’s brain at the moment that he doesn’t realize that he didn’t get a blanket for Peter until after he’s settled back in his seat and laid May down to sleep in her car chair.

“This is my blanket,” he warns, grinning at the way Peter rolls his eyes. “You can have a corner of it since I’m feeling generous. But if you drool on me again you’re banished.”

“I didn’t drool on you! I have never drooled on you!” Peter protests, glancing quickly at his shirt like he thinks there might still be a wet spot there. “If anyone drooled on you it was May.”

“Woooow. Sure, blame your baby dude. But we both know what really happened,” Sam laughs, trying to toss some blanket over him.

“It’s kinda small…” Peter says, raising an eyebrow as a tiny scrap of fabric slides off of his arm.

“So move in closer,” Sam says, hoping that if he rolls his eyes hard enough Peter wont notice the hint of red that he can feel warming his cheeks.

Peter shuffles in until they are pressed against each other and the blanket is just barely covering him, and they both sit stiffly for a second before Peter turns and grins at him.

“Well this is cozy.”

“Shut up and sleep,” Sam laughs, nudging him before tentatively laying his head on Peter’s shoulder.

“You shut up,” Peter mumbles back childishly as he leans his head against Sam’s in return.

“Mayday I think your dad should be the one in the car seat,” Sam grumbles, glancing over to where the baby is fast asleep. “But I guess I’ll have to put up with him until you wake up.”

“Shh. M’sleeping,” Peter says against his hair, and Sam finally quiets down, tuning in to the soft sound of hundreds of people breathing around him and the soft murmur of a few voices coming from a few rows behind him. But it’s the sound of Peter breathing in particular that ultimately lulls him to sleep.

……….

Getting off the plane after fourteen hours is a relief of course, but Sam would be lying if he said a tiny part of him wasn’t disappointed that he’d never see Pete or Mayday again. Mostly May. That baby was adorable.

And any thoughts of how adorable her dad was were to be crushed ruthlessly, because as he said… never gonna see them again.

“Nice flying with you,” Peter says, looking just as regretful to be parting as Sam feels. “I uh… I was wondering…”

“Peter! Mayday! I can’t believe you actually flew all the way here!”

Peter suddenly has his arms full as a gorgeous redhead flings herself at him, kissing his cheek and then peppering kisses all over Mayday’s head.

“Hey MJ! Yeah I uh… it was a really good flight actually…”

Right. The actress.

Peter looks torn, glancing between the woman and Sam like he’s about to ask her to hold on, but then Sam sees Ava waving from across the airport and figures he should probably head out anyways.

So with a shrug final wave to Peter he heads off, ready to find Ava and yell at her for booking him a fourteen fucking hour flight what the hell kind of monster does that to a person?!

Two weeks in a foreign country will be enough to forget all about cute guys and cuter babies. He hopes.

……….

“Fourteen more hours Ava,” he gripes as she walks with him into the airport. “Why didn’t you let me use my helmet again?”

As much fun as spending two weeks with her has been, Sam is beyond ready to go home. Ava is relentless, so not a single day had gone by where he wasn’t being dragged around to see the sights and meet new people. And it was awesome yes, but god he’s almost looking forward to fourteen hours of sitting time just to rest his poor legs.

“You had to experience the pain I felt,” she says, shoving him in a way he thinks was meant to be lightly, but has him almost faceplanting anyways. “Besides, what were you going to do, carry your luggage on your back? But fine, be a wimp and use your stupid helmet if you want.”

“Uh… nah I mean, I did it once right?” Sam says, looking away so he wont have to deal with Ava’s knowing smirk. “And luggage and stuff so…”

“Yeah that’s what I thought. Have a safe flight Sam. Hope you get seated with someone nice,” she purrs as she leaves him to wait, and he regrets telling her about his plane ride in for the thousandth time since he let the story slip.

What kind of dumbass gets a crush on a stranger?

Still, he can’t help but feel a flicker of hope as he boards the plane and heads towards his seat. He’s never wished to be sat beside a baby so much before in his life.

Forty three, forty four… forty five A.

Two older women who barely even give him a second glance are already in the two other seats.

He sits down and sighs, settling in for what promises to be an uneventful flight.

“Oh sir! Good to see you again!”

Sam tenses as the stewardess from his flight before greets him cheerfully. Somehow he has a feeling he won’t be able to pass off the two old women as Peter and May.

“You aren’t seated with your family!” she exclaims, and he starts to sweat not sure what to say. “Hold on just a second, let me see if I can find them and work something out!”

She flounces off before Sam can get a word in, leaving him staring in horror at the seat in front of him to avoid catching the curious glances of the women beside him.

Shit… shit.

She’s going to search the plane for two passengers who aren’t there and Sam’s going to look like an idiot. Maybe he could say they stayed behind for another week? Or… they divorced him? They fell in the ocean? He accidentally sent them to space?

Or he could admit that he’s just some creep who likes to snuggle with cute strangers even though they’ve clearly got a lot of really adorable baggage.

No…not that one. That one sucks.

“Sir? If you could grab your bags, this gentleman has agreed to switch seats with you,” Jenny sing songs excitedly, almost bouncing on her heels. The women sitting beside Sam perk up as an attractive gentleman closer to their age smiles genially at him, and Sam just stares back open mouthed not quite able to believe what he’s hearing.

“You have a lovely family,” the man tells him as he inches into the aisle, and it takes an awful lot of willpower for Sam not to laugh. By the time he reaches his new seat and sees Peter’s smiling face he can’t hold back anymore, he’s giggling like a child and the stewardess’ expression shifts from mildly confused to delighted when May immediately starts giggling along, holding her arms out to Sam like she wants him to pick her up.

“Hi sweetheart,” Peter says brightly, looking about a second away from laughing himself. Stunningly as soon as Sam sits down he finds himself with an arm full of baby grabbing happily at his nose. “You’re gonna make me self-conscious… is it really that big that you gotta grab it every time?”

“It’s a great nose,” Peter tells him, and Sam has to glance away to pretend he isn’t blushing. “So… husbands huh? Is it that easy to tell I swing both ways?” Peter chuckles, busying himself with ensuring Mayday’s car seat is stashed well.

“I think it was probably the cuddling dude.”

“Nooo really? Y’think?”

“Pretty sure,” Sam grins. “Then again you do look pretty gay.”

“Says the guy in the skinny jeans and painted on shirt,” Peter quips back.

“What? I wore all my other clothes, this is all I had left!”

“Suuure,” Peter laughs at him as he glares, before adopting a thoughtful expression. “So I guess if Jenny already thinks we’re married I guess we should probably ask for only one blanket again this time right?”

Sam grins, glancing at Peter out of the corner of his eye. Oh yeah… Peter’s totally into him. “Yeah I guess could think of worse fates than snuggling you for fourteen hours,” he responds. Mayday makes a sudden screeching noise as the plane starts to lift off, and Peter nods thoughtfully.

“Yeah May I agree. We should get his number, but we gotta play it smooth. Maybe ask in a little while after you’re dad has softened him up with my mad snuggle skills.”

Sam snorts, kicking at Peter’s shin and handing Mayday back to him. “Mad snuggle skills? Could you get any nerdier?”

“Dunno. Have dinner with me next weekend and we can find out?” Peter says, and for a nerd he’s deceptively smooth in his delivery. That’s probably how he managed to land an actress at some point.

“Yeah okay,” Sam laughs, lifting the armrest as soon as the plane is in the air. Peter nervously puts his arm around him and Sam lays his head against his shoulder, glad that he can’t see the huge nerdy smile on his face. “You better hope your snuggling lives up to the hype,” he adds letting his grin show in his voice. “Gonna be hard to set up dinner without my number.”

“Don’t worry, I wont disappoint,” Peter tells him confidently. May reaches out and grabs onto Sam’s nose again, making them both laugh. “Besides, my cuddle assistant clearly has this covered.”

Fourteen hours was long last time, and Sam knows it’s going to be just as long this time too. His legs are going to cramp up, the dude behind him with the hacking cough will probably get him sick or at least thoroughly gross him out, and at some point Mayday is going to cry.

But somehow the thought of Peter holding him, the thought of talking to him and learning more about him and making fun of him makes it seem less awful. Maybe it should be weird, snuggling this stranger, but hey snuggling strangers has turned out well for Sam in the past.

And he has a really good feeling about this one.


End file.
